


Tenacity of Purpose

by moonlighten



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cat Burglars, Chocolate Box Treat, Deities, Fantasy, Gods, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22481884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlighten/pseuds/moonlighten
Summary: Noble's god is not a kind one. He is a god of dire straits, hopeless causes, and the eleventh hour. A god born of desperation.Cornered with no hope of escape, Noble is finally desperate enough to call on his god and ask for his aid for the first time.
Relationships: (Minor) God/Their Favored Human, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 7
Kudos: 110
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Tenacity of Purpose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ruis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruis/gifts).



Noble's old mentor, Prosper, claimed to have met their god once.

"I was pinned down by a dragon," he'd told a younger, more credulous Noble, the first time he showed him the long, jagged scars that bisected his torso from left armpit to right hipbone. "It had come back early from a hunt and caught me plundering its hoard. I thought I was done for, but then our lord came to my aid and saw it off right quick."

As Prosper is a sot of long standing, the older, wiser, more cynical Noble thinks that the scars were the result of some shameful drunken misadventure, and that Prosper had either hallucinated both god and dragon or else fabricated the entire encounter wholesale as a salve to his pride once sober, then repeated the story so often over the years that even he had come to believe it was true.

Their god is not a kind one. He is a god of dire straits, hopeless causes, and the eleventh hour. A god born of desperation.

All those who practice Noble's profession carry a small pouch full of good luck charms – vials of consecrated ash, charmed amulets, bezoars, four-leaf clovers and the like – tiny snips of magic and power to be deployed only in extremis. Their ace in the hole. 

Noble's is strung on a braided leather necklace, and he keeps it tucked beneath his shirt, resting above his heart at all times. But only out of habit. He is a master of his art, the finest thief in Ardenmere, and he doesn't make mistakes.

Until tonight. Because he had been taken ill, sent a premonition by his own god, or was simply a philistine, Lord Sable cut short his long-planned night at the opera and returned home to find Noble rifling through his belongings. Noble had been caught just as Prosper claimed to have been caught by that dragon of his – flat-footed and at a distinct disadvantage. 

Lord Sable is a skilled boxer and duellist, and far nimbler than such a huge bear of a man has any right to be. He'd seized hold of Noble in the same instant Noble became aware of his presence, wrapped one of his enormous, raw-knuckled hands around his throat, and started to choke the life out of him. Blackness washed across Noble's vision in dark waves and his ears rang, but he managed to fumble open his belt-pouch and extract one of his sedative-tipped darts with rapidly numbing fingers.

He jabbed it into Lord Sable's thigh, and the man sank to his knees in a daze, but not before he raised an alarm. 

Lord Sable's guards pursued Noble out of the house, through its extensive grounds, and on into the streets, where they were joined by a passing patrol of the City Guard. Noble had never run afoul of them previously but had it on good report that they were both ruthless and relentless. And so they proved to be.

They chased him down half-forgotten alleyways that now appear only on thieves' maps, scaled walls and crawled through drains; stayed hard on heels until they had him cornered – here, in the cellar of a disused warehouse, ankle-deep in stagnant water mixed with the effluent spilling from a cracked sewer pipe nearby.

Noble cannot go up – cannot fight his way past ten heavily armoured guards armed with nothing more than his darts and a dagger – and he can't go down. There was once a hidden door at the back of the cellar, but it has been bricked up since the last time he had occasion to use this particular bolthole, and so recently that the mortar is not quite dry.

He is trapped and he is desperate; desperate enough to draw the hidden pouch out from beneath his shirt and clench his fist around it.

No-one pays homage to his god, and there is no prayer he should speak in this moment. Noble can only close his eyes and breathe out into the dark: "Please, my lord; will you help me?"

A lantern flares in response, and a warmly amused voice says, "You have got yourself into a bit of a pickle, haven't you?"

Prosper said that the god he had met in the Northlands was a young man with chalk-pale skin and light blond hair. The young man standing before Noble now has olive skin and dark eyes and is of average height and average build. Handsome, but not strikingly so. He could walk out of this cellar and blend seamlessly into the crowds on the city streets outside.

There is nothing about his appearance to inspire awe, but Noble's chest tightens, his head spins, and his eyes water just to look at him. 

He bows on reflex, and says, reverentially, "My Lord Sorrow."

"Lord Sorrow?" The god wrinkles his nose in disgust. "Is that really what you mortals are calling me now?"

The name has always seemed like a fitting one. He is the last resort of gamblers and scoundrels. One final roll of the dice. The god of luck, but luck cuts both ways, the bad and the good, and Lord Sorrow dispenses both blessings and curses in equal measure to those willing to call on him.

He seldom descends from the heavens to bestow either in person, though, and his presence now could be an encouraging sign.

"And they call you Noble," the god continues. "Your parents must have had very high hopes for you."

"Higher than dying in a cellar with my boots all covered in shit, certainly," Noble says.

And all for a piece of fucking paper; a racy love letter that Lord Fortitude was embarrassed to have written now that he was due to wed, and feared Lord Sable might make public.

The god laughs. "Well, I can't summon you a gun or a sword, and I can't make those guards up there disappear, but I do have something that could help. Here; catch."

The small, glittering object he throws arcs high and wide, and Noble has to quickly scrabble backwards if he is to have any chance of catching it as the god had instructed him to. Rotten floorboards splinter beneath him on his third step, shatter on his fourth, and he falls through them before he can take a fifth, landing in yet another broken sewer pipe which runs deep below the cellar. 

He has a long, stinking walk ahead of him, but eventually makes it home safe and free.

* * *

  
"Another day, another pickle, eh, Noble?" Lord Sorrow says, crouching down alongside Noble as he writhes, agonised, on the floor of Lady Auspice's study. "For future reference, you should never believe what cursed pieces of jewellery tell you. They invariably lie."

"Noted," Noble tries to say, but what comes out of his mouth is nothing but an amorphous groan.

"What did it promise you?" Lord Sorrow asks. "Great fame or riches, I imagine. They do tend to lack a certain degree of subtlety."

"Didn't say anything," Noble gasps out. "Didn't know it was cursed, either."

He doesn't have any magic, he can't see through illusions, and the mage who'd hired him to steal Lady Auspice's jewellery hadn't warned him about any curses. She'd told him it would be a simple job – minimal security on site, low risk.

And perhaps it might have been, had Noble not been so taken with the ring. It was a pretty little thing, a slim band of delicately filigreed sliver, and in a moment of pure, unthinking vanity, he had slipped it onto his finger just to see how it looked on his hand.

Before it started shrinking, he'd thought it suited him quite well. 

By the time the sound of malevolent laughter filled his head, the ring had become so tight that he couldn't remove it. Now, his finger is swollen, turning blue at the nail, and there are black tendrils emanating from beneath the ring, snaking out over the back of his hand and up the inside of his arm, growing longer with each passing minute.

He doesn't know much of anything about curses, but he suspects that, if those tendrils reach his heart, then it will be the end of him.

"There are always sigils etched on such things," Lord Sorrow says. "If you ever manage to get that ring off your finger, I can show you what you should look for."

"Can you help me _now_?" Noble asks. Pleads, more like.

"I'm afraid not." Lord Sorrow sounds apologetic, and there's something that looks a little like concern in his deep brown eyes, but he still stands up and moves away, regardless. Noble can hear him rummaging through the contents of Lady Auspice's bookshelves, the heartless bastard. "You've unleashed powerful magic here; too powerful for me to counteract. Once, I would have been able to, but not now. I'm not what I used to be."

"Which was?"

There are no holy books written in Lord Sorrow's name, no account of him in the land's histories, and no ancient songs sung in his honour. For the most part, he is nothing more than a rumour, whispered about in the sort of dark corners where the criminal element congregates.

"Magnificent," Lord Sorrow says with an airy sigh. "I used to be nine feet tall, with eyes of fire and a voice that could split mountains. But times moved on and, regrettably, I got left behind. Do you know what happens to gods without worshippers, Noble? We wither and, if we can't manage to adapt and claw back a little bit of belief from you mortals, we eventually fade away entirely.

"You thieves won't build temples for me, won't even offer me prayers, and yet you still expect me to work miracles when the end is in sight. Still call on me to save your lives."

"I didn't call for you this time," Noble says. "Why did you come?"

"You thought about it, though, didn't you?" Lord Sorrow says. "You were deliberating whether it would be better for you to ask for my help again, or else cut off your finger and stop the rot." He walks towards Noble once more, and then stands at his side looming over him. "Have you come to any decisions?"

"You've already told me you can't help me," Noble says. "What choice do I have?"

It will take a long time for his hand to heal, even longer for him to learn how to scale buildings and pick locks with only four fingers on his left hand, but he will do it if he has to.

"Oh, not much, I'll grant you, but I wouldn't give up quite yet. In my experience, there's often a little bit of hope left when all else seems lost." Lord Sorrow raises his arms above his head with an extravagant flourish. "Goodbye, Noble, and good luck."

He snaps his fingers and disappears in a haze of shimmering mist. When the cloud disperses, there is a book laying on the floor where he had stood, cracked open at a page entitled 'The Breaking of Curses'.

* * *

Lord Sorrow walks along the narrow cornice encircling the topmost floor of the mansion with the natural poise and grace of a trained acrobat, and the casual ease of a man setting out on a gentle stroll to settle his stomach after a heavy evening meal, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his trousers.

He stops when he reaches Noble, hanging by his fingertips from the edge of the cornice where he'd only just managed to catch himself when he'd slipped in his haste to escape, and then looks him slowly up and down. There is no haste in _his_ movements whatsoever, and nothing close to urgency.

"Fleeing from the scene of a heist again, were you, Noble?" he asks, his voice light and relaxed, as though they are sat comfortably together making small talk in a drawing room and Noble isn't mere inches and a cramped finger away from a certain and extremely messy death.

"No, from an enraged husband," Noble says.

"A scene of debauchery, then." Lord Sorrow's eyes widen, and he shakes his head with mockingly exaggerated disappointment. "You sadden me, Noble. I never took you for a man of loose morals."

"It was a misunderstanding."

"Ah, yes, I hear naked card games are all the rage in Ardenmere this year," Lord Sorrow says. "So much innocent fun, but so easily misconstrued, too. Such a pity."

"It really was a misunderstanding," Noble insists, which Lord Sorrow scoffs at, clearly unconvinced.

Noble _had_ met with Lady Jasmine in her bedchamber, but solely in a professional capacity. She'd wanted him to appraise some jewels for her – ones she intended to sell so she could afford to divorce her domineering and jealous husband. When he'd burst in on them there and found them seated side by side on the lady's bed, their heads bent close together and one of the lady's hands clasped, comfortingly, within Noble's, he had leapt to entirely the wrong conclusions and then lunged for Noble, sword in hand.

Noble had made good his escape through one of the bedchamber windows, and Lord Bright had not even attempted to follow him, perhaps conjecturing that Noble would soon take a four-storey plunge. And so he would have done, had Lord Sorrow not sauntered towards him only scant seconds later. 

The muscles of Noble's arms and chest had felt to be ripped apart when he grabbed at the edge of the cornice to break his fall, his fingers torn up and his grip precarious, but as soon as the god appeared, the pain receded significantly and now his body feels almost weightless.

The ground is still a long, long way down, though. "I don't suppose your powers will stretch to giving me wings, so I can fly away from here?" he says.

"Sadly not," Lord Sorrow says. "Sometimes, we just have to make our own luck."

He reaches down, takes tight hold of Noble's wrists, and hauls him up onto the cornice proper with no sign of any strain or even effort on his part, as though Noble really does weigh nothing at all.

He instantly lets go afterwards, but the top of the cornice seems to have grown much broader than it had been when Noble was inching gingerly along it earlier – broad enough that it can accommodate his widely set feet quite comfortably when his legs start to shake and he has to lean back and brace himself against the wall to keep from toppling over once more.

"Thank you," he says, when his heart stops pounding fit to burst out through his chest, and he can finally draw in enough breath to form the words. "For the rescue. You have impeccable timing."

Lord Sorrow sketches a bow. "I aim to please," he says.

"But how did you find me?" Noble asks. "Why are you even here? I didn't have chance to even _think_ about calling for you this time."

"I was passing by, happened to look up at just the right moment, and saw you dangling here."

"You were passing by on your way from the heavens?" Noble asks, incredulous. Though its noble residents – who have a highly inflated sense of their own importance, both in this life and beyond – would likely think it the most natural thing in the world, he cannot conceive of Standhope Avenue being a bridge between the celestial and earthly realms.

It’s a fine street – clean, well-lit, and much better maintained than most in the city – but far from divine.

"No, on my way from my home," Lord Sorrow says. "I keep a house not far away and stay there on occasion, when I wish to visit the mortal realm. Since I became… diminished, I've found that passing time here is much more enjoyable than it used to be."

"How so?"

"The heavens are beautiful, but they're a great constant; unvarying. As I've changed so much myself, become more like you, that has started to feel stifling. But here, everything changes – hour by hour, even minute by minute. The weather, the people, the places, and – oh! The dancing! We gods do dance, of course, but you mortals do it with such verve! Do you dance, Noble?"

"Only when I can't avoid it," Noble says. "I'm a terrible dancer."

"You do surprise me. I thought it paid to be limber in your line of work." Lord Sorrow looks him over speculatively, and then smiles, slow and pleased. "You certainly look it."

It's only a very tentative foray into flirtation, a mere toe-dipping test of the romantic waters, but Noble is not sure how to react to it. For all that he looks like a mortal man, Lord Sorrow is still a god – still _Noble's_ god, of sorts – and he worries that it be might be some manner of blasphemy to respond in the same fashion. Or an even worse one to rebuff him outright.

He takes so long trying to think of a suitable reply – grateful, kind, flattering but not too flattering – that Lord Sorrow grows tired of waiting, seemingly. He takes a step back from Noble, his face drawing blank.

"It's getting late, and I have a dinner reservation," he says. "So, if you'll excuse me…."

He raises his arms, the middle finger and thumb of his left hand pressed together, evidently intending to disappear in a puff of smoke as he had in Lady Auspice's study.

"And how am I supposed to get down from here?" Noble asks.

"Well, there's a sturdy looking drainpipe just around the corner of the building there," Lord Sorrow says. "I'm sure a man of your talents would have no trouble shinning down it."

At any other time, that would be true, but Noble's legs are still trembling like those of a new-born colt, and he fears that a descent thus made could end up being a fatally rapid one.

"I do not think that would be wise," he says.

"Perhaps not." Lord Sorrow lowers his right arm and offers his hand to Noble, palm flat and upraised. "I suppose you will have to come with me, then."

Noble had employed the services of a mage once, to break into a vault that was widely held to be impenetrable. The mage had used a translocation spell to convey them both into and out of the vault, thus bypassing the many magical traps and enchanted locks that secured the door. 

It had been a horribly disorienting experience, which left Noble unable to tell up from down and left from right. At the end of both journeys, he'd vomited so hard it felt as though his stomach had been turned inside out and then wrung like a sponge.

Still, even that seems like a sweeter prospect than tackling the drainpipe right now. He lays his own hand atop Lord Sorrow's.

His skin is blood-warm despite the chill of the late evening air and is as smooth as the finest calfskin leather. If Noble didn't know better, he would have thought the god was wearing gloves.

"Are you ready?" Lord Sorrow asks.

Noble nods, and screws his eyes tightly closed, bracing himself for the dizzying rush and full-body lurch he had experienced the last time he travelled this way.

But there is only a slight sense of movement, a soft breeze that ruffles through his hair, and then, as gently as a falling leaf, his feet touch down against cobbles.

He cautiously opens his eyes again. He is standing, safe and secure, on the street just outside Lord Bright's mansion.

Lord Sorrow is nowhere to be seen.

* * *

  
Noble's stomach is turning itself inside out again.

He instinctively curls his body around the pain, draws his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, but it doesn't help to ease the deep ache in his belly, and it doesn't stop the chills racing across his skin. He is shivering hard enough that the frame of his bed is near rattling itself to pieces, and yet sweat pours off him, soaking his thin shirt and trousers through.

"Bad oysters, was it, Noble?" Lord Sorrow asks. Noble hadn't heard him arrive, but his voice comes as no real surprise this time. Noble had almost been expecting it. 

"No," Noble says through gritted teeth. The muscles at the hinge of his jaw are spasming, and he can't open his mouth any wider. "Black viper venom."

"My goodness," Lord Sorrow says, sounding about as perturbed as if Noble had skinned his knee. "That's a nasty poison by all accounts; often fatal. But, you're in luck." He crouches down at Noble's bedside. "I have managed to maintain some small skill in healing. There was never much call for it in my prior incarnation, though I did come to learn the intricacies of the human body quite intimately."

Since their last meeting at Lord Bright's mansion, Noble has thought often about Lord Sorrow's hands and – with increasing enthusiasm and vigour, of late – how his satin-soft touch might have felt if it had lingered, slid from his palm to his wrist and beyond.

But now, when Lord Sorrow lays a hand to his cheek, there's no pleasure in it. His fingers feel to slice into Noble's flesh like knifes. Like icicles, and their gelid bite tears at his core – a sudden, sharp shock like being plunged headfirst into glacial waters. His throat constricts, his lungs seem to shrink; there's a scream building in his chest, but he can't suck in enough air to voice it.

"Easy now," Lord Sorrow says, in the soft, soothing tones of one trying to calm a spooked animal. "We're almost done."

The cold sinks through Noble, pulses at his hips, his thighs, his knees. When it reaches his feet, Lord Sorrow staggers away from him so quickly that he almost overbalances. He grabs hold of the bed's footboard to steady himself, and then sits down heavily on the edge of the mattress.

"There," he says. "All done. How do you feel?"

Noble takes a deep breath; the air flows freely in his throat and swells in his chest. His stomach has stopped cramping. His head is clear.

"Better," he says. "Thank you."

"Good," Lord Sorrow says. "Now, how on earth did you manage to get yourself poisoned by black viper venom in the first place."

"Trapped chest," Noble says. "This was inside it." He takes the small statuette he'd stolen from his belt pouch and passes it to Lord Sorrow. It is only as tall as Noble's hand is wide, made from drab, grey stone carved into a rough suggestion of human form. An innocuous little thing, but apparently worth as much as a diamond its equal in size. "My client said that it one of the few relics that remain from an ancient, lost civilisation that used to live in this area."

Lord Sorrow turns the carving around in his hands, inspecting it from all angles. "It's a fake," he says dismissively. 

"How can you tell?"

"I dealt with the people who made these," Lord Sorrow says. "Once or twice."

"But they all died centuries ago, according to my client."

"Mm, so they did," Lord Sorrow says, with a strange smile on his face. If Noble were pressed to describe it, he would call it nostalgic. "I may not be much of one anymore, but I am still a god, Noble. An immortal. I was born when the heavens were formed, long before that civilisation even existed.

"Anyway, if the previous owner of this trinket was prepared to protect it with black viper venom, then they probably had no idea it wasn't genuine. Likely, it will fool your client too."

He tosses the statuette down to the bed, and then glances around Noble's room. Briefly, as there's not a great deal to see. The room is small, the furniture sparse and plain – the only point of any interest is the painting hanging above the fireplace, and Lord Sorrow's gaze skips over that even more hastily than the rest. Noble cannot blame him for that, as it is an eyesore - a garish monstrosity depicting badly-proportioned woodland nymphs cavorting – for nefarious reasons, judging by the malevolence of their expressions – around a pond painted in an eye-watering shade of fluorescent blue not often seen in nature.

It was the first thing Noble had ever stolen, though, at the start of his apprenticeship with Prosper and has great sentimental value, even it is lacking in all others. He would probably have to pay someone to take it off his hands.

"So, this is your home, then," Lord Sorrow says. "I was expecting something far grander. I had heard you command a hefty sum for your services."

"As a thief, I do," Noble says. "But my family think I'm an office clerk, and office clerks live in rooms like this." What he saves in rent, he is putting aside for retirement, which, having learnt from Prosper's bad example, he intends to take early. Cat burglary is hard on a body, and he does not want to still be engaged in it in his dotage, trying to shin up drainpipes with rheumaticky knees. "Besides, I quite like it here. It's quiet, has a lovely view of the river when the smog clears, and the landlady is very forgiving of me keeping odd hours. She's a dab hand in the kitchen, too."

"Glad to hear it," Lord Sorrow says. "You will need to eat well these next few days, and make sure you have plenty of rest, too. The healing will have taken a lot out of you."

Noble feels a little weak, his limbs heavy and his head oddly light, but otherwise unaffected by his ordeal. 

Lord Sorrow, on the other hand, looks to have been thoroughly enervated by the magic he had worked. His back is bowed in a tired arc, his skin ashen, and his eyes look glassy. Though Noble would very much like to detain him longer, it would surely be far kinder to let him go. 

"You're right," he says. "I should probably get some sleep."

Lord Sorrow nods. "And I should leave you in peace. Good night, Noble." His joints pop and crackle as he gets to his feet, and the bow he then offers Noble is stiff and jerky. "And farewell; till you imperil yourself again."  
  


* * *

  
"This seal doesn't look right, and neither does the signature," the guard says, squinting suspiciously at Noble's invitation.

Noble's very expensive invitation. He had paid a pretty penny to the forger who made it but, clearly, he'd been robbed.

"What do you think, Frank?" The guard beckons a similarly burly and well-armed colleague, and they put their heads together over the creamy square of card. "Lord Earnest does his Gs differently, right?"

Frank disagrees, but he does think that the animal embossed in the wax seal looks more like a dog than Lord Earnest's heraldic lion. The other guard asserts that it more closely resembles a horse.

This spirited debate is interrupted a short while later by a familiar voice calling out, "Don't worry, gentlemen. This young man is with me."

The guards both stammer out apologies and drop into deep bows as Lord Sorrow approaches them, telling him that, of course, he and his friend are welcome to go straight on through to the party.

Lord Sorrow links his arm with Noble's as they walk through the wide entranceway of Lord Earnest's mansion, and when they reach the crowded ballroom beyond and he can be reasonably certain that his words will be masked to all but their intended recipient by the noisy chatter of massed voices, Noble says, "I take it you're well known here."

"Mostly by reputation," Lord Sorrow replies. "They know me as a rich man, with a grand house in the best part of town, who is very seldom seen in public. A virtual recluse. Amongst the nobility, it's considered quite the coup to have me attend a social event. Lord Earnest will be beside himself with glee when he finds out I'm here."

As are a fair number of his guests, judging by the many appreciative glances turned their way by the gathered lords and ladies. Some of them are outright leering, and Noble very much doubts they are looking at him. 

Normally, he dresses for comfort and ease of movement, in plain, dark clothes that don't draw any undue attention. Such outfits are hardly suitable for one attending a party thrown by the richest man in Ardenmere, though, and Noble had spent a hefty chunk of his retirement fund on the purchase of a new coat, shirt, and trousers for the occasion. 

They are fashionably cut and excellently tailored, and also extremely uncomfortable. The coat is made from much heavier material than Noble is used to – he's already overheating in it, sweat trickling down the valley of his spine – and the shirt's collar is both too high and too tight. It feels to be throttling him. He hooks one finger beneath it, attempting to pull it away from his throat and give himself some breathing room, but it's so heavily starched that it barely budges.

"Are you all right?" Lord Sorrow asks him. "You seem unsettled."

"I'm not used to dressing up like this," Noble says. "Or being around people like this, come to that."

"But you work mostly with the highborn, don't you? Stealing from them or for them."

"I do, but they don't tend to invite me to their parties. I stick out like a sore thumb."

Lord Sorrow laughs, disentangles his arm from Noble's, and then places his hands on Noble's shoulders. He holds him at arm's length and gives him a thorough once-over.

"No, you don't," is his final judgement. "You scrub up very nicely, Noble."

He leans closer, and Noble's heart jumps in his chest, thinking that he means to kiss him. But he doesn't; he instead bends his mouth close to Noble's ear and whispers, "I take it you're not here for pleasure."

Noble shakes his head. "I've been hired to procure some important documents from the safe in Lord Earnest's study. I wasn't expecting there to be so many guards here tonight, though. My client told me that security's usually quite lax at his lordship's country estate. Getting upstairs is going to be trickier than I thought."

"If you're in need of a diversion, then I'd be happy to provide one," Lord Sorrow says. "Lord Earnest's parties are renowned for being rather dull affairs. Aiding and abetting a burglary might be the most entertaining thing that happens to me all evening."

\----

When they flee from the manor house several hours later, Lord Earnest's guards hard on their heels, there is an unattended curricle standing in the courtyard just outside the front doors.

"That's very convenient," Noble remarks when he sees it.

"Isn't it just," Lord Sorrow says. "How lucky we are that the driver had to attend to a perfectly timed call of nature. Come on" – he gestures emphatically towards the carriage – "up you get."

"But I don’t know how to drive a carriage!"

"It doesn't matter," Lord Sorrow says, nudging Noble in the small of his back when he baulks. "All horses know how to run. Just flick the reins and he'll do the rest."

As it turns out, Noble doesn't even have to do that much. As soon as Lord Sorrow sits down, quite unexpectedly, beside him on the curricle's bench, the horse sets off cantering down the wide gravelled driveway towards the road that will, eventually, lead them back to Ardenmere.

\----

As they have seen neither hide nor hair of Lord Earnest's guards for a good three miles or more, Lord Sorrow slows the horse from its high-stepping trot to a walk, and then steers the curricle into a small, open field bordering the road so it can rest for a while and catch its breath.

Since his own breath is no longer needed for urging the horse onward, Noble can at last ask the question that's been troubling him since the moment Lord Sorrow chose to escape with him rather than slipping away and heading back to the ballroom when Lord Earnest himself caught them in his study.

"Why did you follow me? If you'd hidden yourself until he set off chasing after me, you could have avoided all this. Lord Earnest hadn't even noticed you were there until you started running."

"Well, the party _was_ unspeakably dull," Lord Sorrow says. "That way, I didn't have to invent an excuse to absent myself from it early. And, besides, I wanted to keep an eye on you."

"On me? Why?"

"Calamity does seem to follow you around, my dear Noble. I thought I might try preventing it for once, rather than picking up the pieces afterwards. And here we are – both hale and hearty, and far beyond the reach of Lord Earnest's guards. It seems I made the right decision."

Lord Sorrow tips his head back to look up at the stars. Moonlight silvers his face, making it look otherworldly for the first time in their acquaintance.

"One thing's been puzzling me, Noble," he says conversationally. "You're something of a celebrity in certain circles. The best thief in Ardenmere, they call you. A prodigy. You'd been plying your trade for almost fifteen years before I first met you, man and boy, and in all that time, you were never even injured or in any danger of being arrested. Yet, in the past six months, your life has been threatened five times, including tonight."

Noble's stomach clenches cold, tensing in anticipation. He's been expecting this for a while now. "Maybe it's just a run of bad luck," he ventures, regardless.

"That's a poor excuse to try with me." Lord Sorrow tuts. "It's definitely not that; I would know. Now, I'm fairly certain that the first two times you needed saving were truly accidents, and perhaps the third, too. But I know that you had a vial of black viper venom antidote in your pouch alongside that statuette when you were poisoned. You could have used it at any time."

"Ah."

"And I saw you deliberately knock over that vase tonight, just as Lord Earnest was walking past his study."

"Right." Noble stares down at his hands in order to avoid Lord Sorrow's eyes when he turns towards him. "And what motive would I have for that?"

"Well, I've been hoping that it's the same one as me," Lord Sorrow says. "The same reason that I'm always listening out for you even when you don't call for me."

This time, when Lord Sorrow leans closer, he doesn't stop short. He presses his lips to Noble's, and they're even softer than his hands. His fingers spark like static as they sketch the curve of Noble's cheek, and his skin tingles in their wake.

The kiss is achingly sweet, but all too brief, and Lord Sorrow soon breaks away from Noble with a burst of breathy laughter.

"That's another thing I enjoy about becoming something closer to mortal," he says, brushing the pad of his thumb across his own lower lip. "Touch has been a revelation; I never felt it so keenly when I was at my full power. Though I seldom sought it out then, anyway. I wasn't the sort of god who was much given to kissing."

"What sort of god were you?" Noble asks. He thinks he could make a good guess, piecing together the few hints Lord Sorrow has dropped in the past, but he would prefer to hear it in his own words.

"Are you sure you want to know? It's not a pretty story, and it's likely to be a lengthy one, too."

"We’ve got a long drive back to the city ahead of us."

"Oh, I think it could be even longer than that." Lord Sorrow looks at Noble sidelong – hesitant, but also a little sly. "I imagine we might be kept occupied for the rest of the night, and perhaps on into the morning, too."

The implicit offer is an ambiguous one, but the suggestive smile that accompanies it certainly isn't.

Noble's mouth runs dry. "That sounds great," he croaks out.

"And if you enjoy that tale—"

"I'm sure I will."

"You have great faith in my storytelling abilities, Noble. I'm flattered." Lord Sorrow flushes, and clears his throat before continuing with: " _If_ you enjoy that tale, then there are many more I could tell. I've lived for millennia; I know enough to keep us both entertained for a long while to come."

The horse must be rested enough by now. Noble grabs up the reins and flicks them encouragingly and with no little urgency. Their return to Ardenmere cannot come quickly enough.

"That sounds even better," he says.


End file.
